In 35 years as Manhattan DA, Robert Morgenthau has gotten along with every mayor of New York -- except the current one. Mike Bloomberg, says Morgenthau, "doesn't want anybody around who doesn't kiss his ring, or other parts of his body." In a wide-ranging interview with the Wall Street Journal, the 90-year-old, who leaves office Thursday, addresses everything from his feud with the mayor to the international crimefighting role his office has played during his tenure. As usual, he pulls no punches: On enforcing economic sanctions against Iran and its business partners: "The president is smoking pot or something if...

Fifteen years ago, at the age of 90, Brooke Astor issued a letter to her executors in which she laid out instructions for her funeral. Her second husband, Charles Marshall, had done the same thing before his own death in 1952, “and it was a great comfort to know that I was doing exactly what he wanted,” she wrote. Mrs. Astor, the socialite and philanthropist who died on Monday, expressed her wishes for “a regular Episcopal service” at St. Thomas Church, on Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, and went on, in the letter, to make specific requests for hymns, prayers,...

Millionaire socialite Brooke Astor, whose well-being is at the center of a legal battle between her son and grandson, has been moved to a hospital, where her condition is improving, her doctor said. Dr. Sandra Gelbard, a specialist in internal medicine and critical care at Manhattan's Lenox Hill Hospital, told the Daily News in Thursday's editions that Astor's "condition has improved, and we are hopeful that she is going to go home in the very near future." Gelbard said the hospital would issue a formal statement on Thursday. In court papers filed last week, Astor's grandson, Philip Marshall, accused his...

<p>July 27, 2006 -- THE Mrs. Brooke Astor story. Many of us have known for a long while that New York's all-time grandest dame has been exhibiting increased signs of fragility. She's entitled. The woman is 104.</p>
<p>She is also entitled to continue her days in the style befitting one of America's greatest ladies.</p>

NEW YORK - Brooke Astor, the civic leader, philanthropist and high society fixture who gave away nearly $200 million to support New York City's great cultural institutions and a host of humbler projects, died Monday. She was 105.